Killer Ethernet E2400 and Wireless-AC 1535

[HEXUS]

Let's settle the debate: can a Killer NIC really improve your network experience?

Read more.

[kalniel]

Why wouldn't you just limit the Steam download speed while playing games? You don't need killer hardware or software to do that. Feels a bit artificial to test while allowing Steam to use all the bandwidth and then say another QoS software layer helped.

[Firejack]

The Killer Network Manager is too much of a resource hog to make it worthwhile. Whatever you gain in network performance you lose the same if not more in system performance.

The experience with my E2200 has been terrible. I got an E2200 in 2014 on my motherboard and it was *never* stable under Windows 8.0 with frequent software crashes and driver resets. Only by accident I managed to get it working when I stumbled across a guide that allowed me to use the Qualcomm Atheros AR8161 drivers instead as both NICs were based on the same chip.

Fast forward to Windows 10 and I didn't have a working E2200 driver until last September when the 8.1.0.31 drivers were released that fixed the driver resetting when copying large 100MB+ files across my network.

Things have been slightly more positive since Rivet Networks came on the scene with more frequent driver updates but honestly, I wouldn't buy another Killer Networks product.

[herulach]

Its also not really a hardware feature? QoS is a pretty basic networking option my motherboard drivers can do it (Asus Z97 MPower) as can my Router (also asus as it happens but any decent router should be able to). A proper comparison test would be 'Is QoS on a single machine better than at the exit point' I'd bet the answer would be no, except in the instance you start a big network copy job before opening up a game.

[Tunnah]

...Why would anyone be watching a youtube video while playing a game?

[jim]

...Why would anyone be watching a youtube video while playing a game?

I used to watch TV whilst playing Football Manager. But then I guess that's not really the objective of Killer - that's more about online games. As for who is playing online games and watching YouTube... I'm not sure. Minecraft and slow-paced strategy games, maybe?

[Mapester]

These products seem pointless, In my house Ive got 5 wired devices and many wireless devices running off my router + one switch. If one user was to decide to use all of the available bandwidth on the network, I can't see how the Killer NIC or their software being able make my connection to the network any better.

I use Tomato firmware on my ASUS router which has excellent QOS rules to ensure traffic is prioritised correctly. PFsense is another good option to do QOS on your network.

Perhaps they should scrap all of their products and focus on making a Killer NIC router instead where the QOS software would be more beneficial for the end user.

[KillerNetworking]

Hi - I am with Rivet Networks. My kids often watch Netflix and play games at the same time, but another scenario is watching a twitch stream while playing.

The bigger picture though is what Parm mentioned - sometimes we stress our networks out intentionally by multitasking, and other times it happens without us knowing (windows updates, softpatches, etc...). Either way, our attitude is why waste expensive bandwidth by turning everything off when you game when you no longer have to? Games usually only take about 20 kilobits of data at any given point, and if you have a 100 megabit connection you are wasting over 99% of your bandwidth when you game.

[sanf789]

I suppose this one is similar to DX12 and Mantle right now. There is a promise of having low overhead drivers and down to the metal features, but results are not showing the advantages just yet. Similar to Killer NICs. So far, I am not impressed.
However, it is good to see better 5GHz WiFi performance.

[Plasmastorm]

...Why would anyone be watching a youtube video while playing a game?

I used to watch TV whilst playing Football Manager. But then I guess that's not really the objective of Killer - that's more about online games. As for who is playing online games and watching YouTube... I'm not sure. Minecraft and slow-paced strategy games, maybe?

I often have iPlayer on 1 screen while bittorrent is in the background while playing WoW. NO killer network but perfectly fine

[directhex]

[QUOTE=Firejack;3633071The experience with my E2200 has been terrible.[/QUOTE]

Mine's been great. Supported out of the box by the alx kernel module. JustWorks(tm)

[Firejack]

Unfortunately the E2200 is in my gaming machine so I'm stuck with Windows for the time being

[dannyboy75]

...Why would anyone be watching a youtube video while playing a game?

I often play music from youtube while gaming. Also sometimes alt+tab out of games to browse youtube instead of staring at a loading screen, or when playing games such as Elite Dangerous, where supercruising to a destination can take a minute or two.

[maxp779]

As a gamer I actively avoid Killer network stuff...

Id take Intel or Reaktek or even Atheros over this BS. All 3 of those have worked well for me and are reliable. Killer? Never heard of it apart from that stupid PCI gaming network card that only morons bought back in the day. Give me a proven network chip anyday.

[Archaon]

So for the pleasure of installing a hulking great piece of network management software you get lower throughput than a bargain basement Realtek NIC? Let's just say Realtek NICs are used because they're cheap, not because they're particularly good (though they are adequate, mind you), and yet it still beat the Killer in most of the tests.

I know, it's a small difference and over a gigabit link who really cares about a megabit here or a kilobit there, but I'd expect a product like this to provide best of breed performance rather than being shown up by the cheap as chips 'industry standard' network card for consumer boards.

Also as it works at a single device level it's also absolutely no help for networks with multiple devices - yes it might throttle Windows updates on your gaming PC but it won't throttle someone else with a laptop/tablet/phone running updates or watching Netflix or whatever. If it's something that really causes a problem on a network then QoS is a much better 'whole network' solution for that.

Overall - thanks but no thanks.

[Sumanji]

If one user was to decide to use all of the available bandwidth on the network, I can't see how the Killer NIC or their software being able make my connection to the network any better.

This.